We had the chance to catch up with Gerald Clayton during his visit at the Montreal Jazz Festival to talk about his debut album Two-Shade. Here’s what he had to say.
“I don’t like the words jazz, rock or classical. I think those just put people’s minds into a box. A lot of times people become close minded towards music that they’ve never even listened to because it’s classified under a certain genre. In this day and age, we all have iPods which hold entire record collections in the palm of our hand. That’s why it’s hard for me to say that my influences have come directly from one place.
While it’s true that I’ve spent a lot of years studying jazz, that I love the music and that I have so much appreciation and respect for the people, the legends, who’ve created this music, I just try to think about making honest music and sometimes it means pulling from all sorts of genres and styles and thus the name of the album Two-Shade.
The album’s about taking two opposite ideas and putting them together in order to create a new sound. It features jazz, some hip hop and a lot of improvisation. It’s a lot of communication between each person in the band, between the drums, the bass and the piano. So listen for that and hopefully we’ll keep your toes tapping and make you want to dance at the same time!”
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